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Second life for closed churches

Joyce Duriga Catholic News Service

Visitors tour the new St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Old Mill Creek, Ill., during a Jan. 27 celebration marking completion of the first phase of construction of their new church. The building includes the facade of the now-demolished St. John of God Church in Chicago and will include the interior of the now-closed St. Peter Canisius Church. St. Raphael is giving new life to closed churches in the Chicago Archdiocese by recycling their materials.

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Workers disassemble parts of a closed Chicago church, St. John of God, in September 2010. Parts of the church are being incorporated into a new structure, St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Chicago. St. Raphael is the newest parish in the Chicago Archdiocese and its church, through a recycling effort, will give new life to now-closed churches by incorporating pieces of those structures into its building.

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OLD MILL CREEK, Ill. – The shell of the new St. Raphael the
Archangel Church is up in Old Mill Creek, but this is not
just any new parish building under construction.

It includes the facade of the now-demolished St. John of God
Church from Chicago’s South Side and will include the
interior of another closed church, St. Peter Canisius, in
another part of the city.

St. Raphael, the newest parish in the Chicago Archdiocese,
undertook an effort to give new life to the closed churches
by recycling their materials in a new structure. It also
enabled the parish to build a classical structure at a
fraction of the present-day cost.

“Nothing like this has been built in the Archdiocese of
Chicago for a hundred years,” Father John Jamnicky, St.
Raphael’s pastor, told the Catholic New World, Chicago’s
archdiocesan newspaper, during an open house at the new
building Jan. 27.

He was referring to the quality of workmanship in the facade
from St. John of God; it includes a front balcony, bell
towers, three bells and 20 wood doors, each of which stand 11
feet tall. Of the doors, Father Jamnicky said, “They would
cost you $15,000 a piece for each door if you were to buy
them.”

The pastor said he hopes what is being done at St. Raphael’s
could be a model for other parishes around the country.

“Throughout the country, people have been contacting us
because they are in the same situation,” he said. Many
dioceses have church buildings in inner cities that are going
unused that could be given new life if parts are used in
other areas of the dioceses where the population has shifted.

“If we can make this work, it can be a prototype for other
dioceses and archdioceses across the country,” he said.

Last October in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, Archbishop
Charles J. Chaput dedicated a new church in Montgomery
County, Pa., Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, which contains
artistic and architectural elements from five closed Catholic
churches and a Catholic hospital. Recycled items in the new
church include a towering 37-foot-high main altar piece in
the sanctuary and stained-glass windows.

At St. Raphael in Old Mill Creek, roughly 40 miles northwest
of Chicago, construction continued on the steeples and bells,
the exterior colonnades and organ. The church will hold 900
people and should be operational in a year.

The idea to use the facade of St. John of God actually came
from an offhand comment made by Chicago Cardinal Francis E.
George when he came to officially open St. Raphael Parish in
Antioch in 2007, Father Jamnicky said.

After working for months to create a viable worship site in
an old machine shed, the pastor remarked that it was time to
start thinking about a permanent church. Cardinal George said
that he should give them St. John of God, Father Jamnicky
recalled. The pastor was aware of the church and had a
similar idea.

In the machine shed worship site, the parish already was
using pews, statues, confessionals, an altar and other things
pulled from closed parish buildings, so parish leaders were
open to the idea of giving new life to items from closed
churches.

It cost $2 million to remove the facade of St. John of God
and rebuild it in Old Mill Creek. The entire project will
cost $15 million and the parish is still raising funds for
construction. Father Jamnicky believes a project like this
would cost around $150 million if it were being built from
scratch. A parish couldn’t afford to build a church of this
quality today, he said.

Architect Simon Batistich said “it was fun” to work on this
project even though many people said “it can’t be done.”

“It’s not rebuilding a church, it’s taking pieces of two
churches and making a new church,” Batistich said.

The interior fittings, including marble furnishings, pews and
stained-glass windows, will come from St. Peter Canisius
Church on Chicago’s North Avenue; it closed in 2007. The
interior of St. John of God was not usable – the
stained-glass windows were missing, much of the interior was
demolished and the altar was plaster and couldn’t be moved.

The stained-glass from St. Peter Canisius is “museum quality”
and “worth over $2 million,” Father Jamnicky said.

The church is being built with modern innovations and meeting
current building codes while preserving the unique work and
architecture of the older churches. The bell towers were even
reconstructed to withstand an earthquake.

“This is the only church in the Archdiocese of Chicago built
under seismic specifications,” Father Jamnicky said. “This
church is going to stand for the next hundred, 200 years.”

Keeping with the theme of giving new life to existing beauty,
the Austin organ that will be installed in the parish loft
came from the Medinah Temple. Three bells for the second
tower were acquired from a Bellwood Catholic church and the
stations of the cross came from yet another Chicago church.

Parishioner Bob Eberhardt sold part of his farm land to the
archdiocese to build St. Raphael and called the church
“awesome.”

“It’s like God calling us,” he said of the building. “We’re
all excited.”

Duriga is editor of the Catholic New World, newspaper of the
Chicago Archdiocese.

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